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#historical undergarments
dresshistorynerd · 1 year
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I think we can all agree that this is dumb, right? Though the title is highly misleading and the quote marks around "ban" do a lot of work here. These companies just no longer requires actresses to wear structural garments. Still a dumb and bad solution to the problem of badly made costumes.
Couple of my issues with the article:
The purpose of the corset or any other similar structural garment wasn't to reduce waist, but to provide support and shape the silhouette. In the article someone from Netflix commented that they shouldn't promote that women should make their waists smaller, apparently it's "bad optics". And from Neflix the main series where corsets are no longer required is Bridgerton, because one of the main actors had bad time with her stays. But if you take just one quick look at the Regency silhouette you will see the waist is far from reduced. Literally there is no waist. Completely covered. They have been doing something terribly wrong if they have made Regency stays that pinch down the waist. Some actors also seem to think the waist is supposed to be reduced all the time. I remember that one actor in HBO's The Gilded Age complained about the corset, but then in the same breath admitted that she had asked the costumers to make it purposefully a little too small so she could be tight-laced all the time (a practice some fashionable rich Victorian women did for high society events, and definitely not all the time). But beyond the inaccuracies in the article, there is an issue here. Structural garments supported the bust yes, but also in many periods they supported the weight of the dress. In 17th and 18th centuries and Victorian Era the skirts of rich women especially had a lot of heavy fabric which would be hard to deal with and move around with, if all the weight is only on the waist. But with a structural garment it distributes the weight to the whole torso, especially on the hips.
A structural garment needs to be fitted well and worn with with a shift underneath. It absolutely can be uncomfortable, create bruising and restrict breathing, if it's not well fitted. If you have ever used too small jeans that contain no spandex at all, you know how nasty the effects can be on the skin. Especially TV sets often have very little time for creating costumes and they might have just one fitting or at tops two or in worst case scenario none at all, which very easily leads to ill fitting costumes. That is a huge issue with structural garments. I've been making transitional short stays for myself and I have never made a garment like that so I'm still struggling fit it well (it's unfinished), and I can say it's not comfortable when it doesn't fit well. I haven't watched Bridgerton but I have seen couple of screencaps of different scenes with characters wearing stays and no shift to be seen anywhere. I really do hope they actually are wearing shifts when they have the full outfits on and just didn't wear them in these scenes for aesthetics or something. Because, yes, that will absolutely give you bruising, if you wear any type of fitted and structured garment against your skin without any fabric between it and the skin, against which the structural garment can slide against. It would be irresponsible to put your actors in such garments without shifts. I don't blame the actors for complaining about the "corsets", since I can believe they are uncomfortable if they are not well fitted or god forbid if they aren't wearing shifts.
I don't know how many times this needs to be said: corsets are not torture devices. While I don't blame the actors for complaining, reading comments like this kills one brain cell every time: "Women existed in that for such a long time, which does give you a lot of sympathy for that time period and what they were going through. For the first month, I couldn’t breathe." I'm sorry, but women literally did physical labour in corsets. They climbed mountains in corsets. (I have a whole post related to this.) Do these people really think so little of women in the past that, if corsets really were torture devices, they would have just endured them quietly for centuries? Of course the most fashionable clothing in a lot of the periods were uncomfortable and hard to move in, even restrictive, but those were the court gowns and ball gowns the young fashionable elite wore for the special evening occasions to show off to the high society. But does that really differ from today? If you look at the MET galas and stuff, do these actors really claim the outfits are comfortable? The everyday clothing and the clothing of the working class was fairly comfortable, and yes, they all wore corsets.
Yes, you can make properly fitted, comfortable supportive garments for costumes in any production. The proof is in opera. Opera singers wear corsets in a lot of productions. I have read many accounts by opera singers who talk about how their corsets are well fitted and actually makes singing easier, because you can "lean" on the corset (I don't know anything about singing, but that's what I have seen them say). Also they tend to wear those large and heavy period dresses and as alluded earlier moving on them on stage without corset would be very hard. Singing also would be harder as the singers could easily become breathless from moving the heavy dress without using the muscles on the whole body. Operas have much smaller budget than these big tv and movie productions, so there's really zero excuses for making badly fitting corsets.
So yes, it's dumb, it's inaccurate and kinda infuriating. But it's also actually pretty sinister. The issue isn't actors wearing corsets for many hours, that's what people have done for ages and still do in re-enactments, opera etc. The issue is that there's too little time for fitting and sewing the corsets in modern tv and movie production. And this is part of a much broader issue. Costume designers and makes are unionized in Hollywood and for a while now Hollywood studios have tried to cut the amount of unionized behind the scenes labour they employ.
Making profit from a movie or a tv show is not good enough anymore. Now productions that don't "perform as expected" are seen as flops. The production companies make predictions of profit and green light projects they have calculated to make most profit, and if they don't make that high profit, it's a flop and it won't get the planned sequel or the next season. To achieve those high profits they also do everything they can to lower the production costs, and one way is by employing as little unionized labour, to whom you have to pay fair wages, as possible. So costume departments are then very often understaffed and they have way too little time to produce the costumes in proper quality. This can be seen very blatantly in the clear drop in quality of movie costuming during the past couple of decades. So the reducing of structural garments in costumes seems like yet another attempt to reduce unionized labour disguised as feminism.
Obviously the good and smart solution to the problem of uncomfortable structural garments is to hire enough costumers for long enough time so they can have multiple fittings and make them better.
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zoesrepository · 1 year
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@dixiediy
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indiesewsthings · 2 years
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The Mildly Chaotic making of 1920s undergarments: Part 1
So this was not in my plan for the next few months At All but I cannot control the hyperfixation. So I took some leftover white cotton fabric from my stash and went to town.
Step-in Chemise/Teddy
As suggested by the name, you step into it rather than pull it over your head. This means that the width at the bust (and waist) must equal your hip measurement. I based my chemise on a pattern I bought, so for obvious reasons I won’t share the diagrams or instructions.
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The drawing on the right somewhat resembles what I was going for. While most depictions of underwear from this period show them in pretty shades of pastel or jewel tones, I only had white scraps and no lace (confession time: I’ve never actually sewn with lace before) and I’m too lazy to spend my money on new fabric.
So I cut 3 rectangles: one for the top part that was my hip measurement x my underarm to high hip measurement and 2 ‘skirt’ portions. I made them slightly wider than the top rectangle and long enough that the finished garment would nearly reach my knee.
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The pattern called for a ‘double-fold net’ at the top, so I purchased some reproduction lace from this Etsy shop (highly recommend) and while I waited for it to arrive, I started sewing the rest of the garment:
First I sewed the top into a tube and hemmed the 2 short sides of the skirt pieces. I was too lazy to thread my sewing machine, so I decided to sew by hand. I ran gathering stitches at the top and gathered the remaining extra width to fit the top portion. I then French-seamed the skirt pieces to the top and hemmed the bottom edges. I also managed to sew the back piece 1) the wrong way round, 2) so it is a solid 1.5″ longer than the front. Nobody knows how, at least I don’t.
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Next I sewed 2 1-inch wide tubes and pinned them onto the top for a try-on because I’m a sucker for trying everything on at every stage. You can kind of see it take shape now, it just needs some... Finishing.
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Then I just sat around waiting for my lace to arrive (i.e. immediately started making a pair of bloomers).
It finally did (yay!) and here’s what it looked like:
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By now I had got round to threading my sewing machine so I machine-stitched the lace to the top of the chemise and trimmed the seam allowance back. Then I sewed the straps to the top of the fabric and then to the lace itself to stop it flapping (excuse the blurriness, taking photos is hard)
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After a final fitting, I decided that the ease I included in the hip measurement wasn’t necessary so I sewed 2 darts in the top to help reduce the excess space.
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Et voila! Spontaneous underwear-making successfully achieved.
Skills learned:
- adding a lace border
- recreating a pattern from the bare minimum of instructions and 1 illustration.
Now if I can only get my hands on some pastel rayon...
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I just saw a post that reminds me: I need to have more Historical Underwear Breakfast. The last one made me so happy, and I need an excuse to find myself a wider assortment of old-school underpinnings.
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tweedlebat · 2 years
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an interesting historical tidbit that doesn't really get talked about enough, sanitary belts. My grandmother could remember having to use these before disposable period products were widely available, and they came in many different styles. You can see an example here in this ad circa 1912 from this manual! Basically it's a belt with a snap for some cloth. It's bulky sure, but tbh if you have heavy flows I have a feeling this might be a bit more secure. And if you're wearing a bunch of skirts, as the people this ad was geared for circa 1912, I doubt bulkiness was an issue. nowadays we have cloth pads with snappable wings vs the big belt designs, that are a lot easier to wear. And they're lined with a waterproof liner too, to help prevent leakage.
Anyways I'm not able to go into mega detail on it right now, but I figured it's worth talking about at least a little!
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why do we have all of these myths? The answer goes back to...a lack of practical experience and research into these garments. As a result, it’s hard to understand how something felt when you’ve never had the experience yourself. It’s easy for us to look at the people of the past and say, 'They got it all wrong, and we’ve got it all right!' It’s the 'City Upon a Hill' complex— looking down at everyone from our 'enlightened' and 'better' world above. It’s easy to make women victims of fashion and say that women wore corsets exclusively for the male gaze. [...A]re we perhaps just projecting our current situations and worldview upon the people of the past to make ourselves seem better? The corset shouldn’t be viewed as something oppressive, and women of the past shouldn’t all be thrown into the corner as victims of their fashions. Women were making history back then, too, through leadership, bravery, and deeds both big and small, and they did that all in a pair of stays or in a corset. It didn’t stop them, and it shouldn’t stop us from trying to understand them and the garments they wore in a better, and less mythical way.
Stephanie Celeberti, ‘Make No (Whale)Bones About It: Debunking those Corsetry Myths’ (LancasterHistory.org)
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samissadagain · 2 years
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Woman's Corset ca. 1890, American, figured silk, lace, silk ribbon, baleen (whalebone), metal busk
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ask19thcenturyengland · 4 months
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corsetma · 6 months
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This skirt is made of the best pink cowhide and of excellent quality. You can only take small steps or jump when walking. If you like it, you can customize it with me。
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If I hear the word "broodmare" used in a 3rd wave feminist, anti-patriarchy speech by a female character who is supposed to be from a time where bicycles aren't invented yet in one of these "historical" dramas I am going to lose my mind.
Like yes, feminists existed before the late 19th century! Good job! But am I supposed to believe that every single 16 year old princess had the exact same "I don't want to be sold off like a broodmare and bear children for my husband!" reaction to the news that they were going to have an arranged marriage, y'know the thing they have been prepared for their entire lives because children of monarchs in a pre-modern world were (and knew that they were) practically political bargaining tools?
Like showrunners of period dramas need to dial it down on the #girlboss juice and instead put more energy into historical costume research beyond typing "old timey dress" to Pinterest and running with the first five results.
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dresshistorynerd · 2 years
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Sewing Medieval Bathhouse Dress
I'm a big boob person and for me bras have always been very uncomfortable. They never support enough even with the metallic wire support as the elastic strap is not secure enough and that wire curve is also just uncomfortable. My shoulders are also always aching because of the pressure put on shoulders. But no bras is even more uncomfortable especially if I have to do anything else than sitting. Which is why I have been considering testing out historical options ever since I got into historical sewing.
When it comes to historical sewing (and to some extent sewing in general) I'm still a noob and so I have been quite intimidated by stays and corsets and I've figured I'll start with medieval supportive garments, like kirtle, as they are much simpler. Then I saw the video where Morgan Donner made a bathhouse dress and I immediately wanted to test it out too.
Some history
Bathhouse dress is a garment that appears around 14th to 16th century in central Europe, mostly around Bohemia, Austria and German states and their vicinity. Perhaps the most famous finding of this garment is the Lengberg Castle Bra found in Austria.
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It's often called medieval bra because it has cups like bra. I think that's somewhat misleading as it was a full dress and this is just fragments of the dress. There's theory that there's only this left because the larger continuous pieces of linen were cut off and used for some other garment. The dress was quite different from shift, the usual loose undergarment that would be used under supportive kirtle around most of Europe at the time. It was sleeveless and tailored with lacing, usually on the side. The reason it's often called bathhouse dress is that there's a lot of depictions of it in bathhouse use, especially in Bohemia, and these depictions are sometimes referred as Bohemian bathhouse babes.
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All of these types of garments didn't have cups like this example from 1389 Bohemia, and there were a lot of different designs. There's different shaped bodices, some had waist seem, some didn't. In German the garment with cups was called breastbag at the time. In the literary mentions there was often degrading tone when talking about it, and it seemed that the writers at least thought women who used breastbag were "showing off". When have men not complained about women's fashion in a patriarchal society? Perhaps with the other designs there wasn't similar derision. The writings and some other depictions of the garment suggest that it was used more generally as an undergarment and not just for bathhouse. Which would make sense as it would seen uncharacteristic for Middle Ages to tailor a supporting garment (not cheep) just to use in bathhouses.
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Here's a potter wearing similar garment with different design from late 15th century Austria.
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Another one from mid 15th century Austria of a woman putting clothes on and obviously wearing the dress as undergarment.
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Here's a German example from late 15th century of a woman wearing it as a nightgown, which shift was also used for.
The sewing part
If you want a tutorial, go and watch that Morgan Donner video linked in the beginning, I'm not a good source on sewing, especially historical.
I wanted to make my version of the dress fairly historical, but I wasn't too concerned with making in exactly right as it's purpose is for daily use and not historical costuming. I hand-sewed it with historical techniques though, but the patterning part was quite chaotic and I basically came up with it as I went so there ended up being some weirdness in finishings as I didn't plan far enough.
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So here's how it turned out. I very intentionally made it much shorter than it should be. Most depictions have it reach half calf. I was making it for daily use and not historical costuming and I have a lot of knee length skirts, so I wanted it short enough for that. I actually made the bodice and skirt into separate pieces that are just loosely whipstitched together so I can use them both alone too, especially the bodice with trousers.
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The shape of the bodice isn't historical. The cleavage goes fairly high and is fairly straight in most of the historical examples (especially with the cups). Even the Lengberg bra originally had crochet covering the chest area. But again that wouldn't have fitted so well with a lot of my modern clothing, and my purpose wasn't historical recreation.
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As I was talking about the pretty weird finishings, here you can see them. The result isn't very neat, but it's fine.
I have been wearing this now a couple of months and I'm in love with it. It's much more supportive while being also so much more comfortable. The lacing on the side distributes the force around the waist, so it doesn't put nearly as much pressure on my shoulders. It's made entirely out of linen and is very nice against skin and as it doesn't have any metallic wires it also doesn't press anywhere. It also is just much more flattering than bras at least for me. It doesn't work that well without the skirt, the waist starts wrinkling and moving up, but the skirt keeps it pretty straight. The bodice is also slightly too long and it doesn't sit exactly on my waist, so it adds to the problem. It's not a huge problem though, it's just a bit annoying.
I'm planning to test out a version where I'll reinforce the eyelets with synthetic baleen instead of cord and put baleen in the other side too and maybe in the center front so I could use it as a separate undergarment without the annoying wrinkling. I'm also planning on doing 16th century kirtle bodice or the full kirtle (or both maybe as separate but attachable pieces, like with the bathhouse dress) with either stiff interlining or boning and Regency short stays. I want to test out different types of supportive undergarments in my quest for better bra options. Maybe after I've done them I'm ready to try Victorian corset too.
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zoesrepository · 1 year
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Elise Jean @welldressedhistorian
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clove-pinks · 1 year
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A circa 1840 print by Paul Gavarni (Paris Musées) dated 1839-1841, showing two Parisian students in their less than ideal quarters. The caption reads, "Orestes and Pylades would gladly have died for each other, but they would be at odds if they had only had a basin and a water jug."
It's another wonderful look at early/mid 19th century men's underwear, and the long shirt of the man washing his face is reminiscent of this (undated, 19th century) extant garment in the collection of the Musée de la Chemiserie et de l’Elégance Masculine:
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I have been trying to date this particular shirt. The relatively plain front and lack of frills makes me think it's not very early 19th century—but Phillis Cunnington and C. Willett Cunnington's book The History of Underclothes has extant shirts that look like this from c. 1795-1800 and 1813. They quote the Beau Monde magazine in 1806 and 1807 promoting shirts without frills. (But some men clearly were wearing shirt frills, if you have ever seen a portrait of a Napoleonic/War of 1812 era officer).
The Story of Men's Underwear by Shaun Cole has some more clues dating this shirt, namely that "after 1850 the bottom of the shirt was curved rather than square cut."
So is this an 1840s shirt? It does look like the student's shirt in the Gavarni cartoon above, and here another Gavarni dated 1840-1841 (also Paris Musées):
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(I THINK they just went swimming? The caption is about how they have to hurry up for the dinner bell or their aunt is going to be annoyed).
Finally, the Musée de la Chemiserie is located in an 1860 shirt factory, could this be one of their own creations, despite the straight cut bottom? It's a beautiful piece of craftsmanship. While it seems like all 19th century men's shirts are pretty large, compared with their 21st century descendants, they did become more tailored and fitted over time:
Men’s shirts had traditionally been made from a series of rectangles and squares, which resulted in a voluminous garment. By the mid-nineteenth century, a desire for closer fitting garments led to the development of patterns that allowed shirt makers, tailors and the home sewer to produce well fitting garments. In 1845 a scale pattern was featured in the Journal des Demoiselles with complex written instructions that ended with the statement ‘If you succeed, be proud! Because ‘a shirt without a fault is worthy of no less than a long poem’.” By the 1850s, tailors were applying their pattern drafting systems to shirts and tailors and other producers strove to introduce developments that made their shirts closer fitting and more comfortable. Patterns for shirts were included in magazines aimed at men such as Devere’s Gentleman’s Monthly Magazine of Fashion and The West-End Gazette of Gentlemen’s Fashions, as well as trade journals such as The Tailor and Cutter. In 1871, London shirt-maker Brown, Davies & Co. registered a design for “The Figurative Shirt”, which buttoned all the way down the front, removing “the old and objectionable way of putting on the shirt by putting it over the head”
— Shaun Cole, The Story of Men's Underwear
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tweedlebat · 2 years
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more menswear from this book circa 1884!
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catie-does-things · 1 year
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Came across an article claiming medieval women were expected to tightlace their corsets even during pregnancy so you know...don't believe everything you read on the internet, kids.
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ladyscorpio-phantom · 5 months
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Anyways I decided to color my first ever P drawing
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